The fabrication of teeth for ceramic crowns, bridges or implants, has always been a time-consuming, expensive process. A technician must prepare a pasty mixture of a ceramic powder and a liquid which gradually dries into a packed powder. While it is drying the technician must mold and carve the pasty mixture into a shape resembling the natural tooth it is replacing, or in the case of an all ceramic crown, also match the contours of the tooth stump to which it is to be affixed. Not only is the shaping operation time consuming and difficult, but there is also the problem of the proper blending of colors in order to match the color of the teeth to each other and/or to those natural teeth adjacent to the one being fabricated.
This invention provides a process for making a plurality of generic tooth-shaped thin enamel-like shells of the various types of teeth found in various persons which can then be filled and carved to a final shape and tinted to a final color with an enormous savings in time of technician's labor and cost of the finished tooth or crown which is also less dependent on the sculptural and artistic skill level of the technician.
It is an object of this invention to provide a novel and efficient process for making an artificial tooth or dental crown. It is another object of this invention to provide a novel process for preparing a tooth enamel shell which is then filled with colored dentine material to arrive more precisely to the final product in color and shape. Still other objects will appear from the more detailed description which follows.